gudgeon

Gobio gobio

syötti A small freshwater fish, Gobio gobio, that is native to Eurasia.
c. 1596, (w), (w), Act I, Scene 1, http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=merchantvenice&Scope=entire&pleasewait=1&msg=pl

I'll tell thee more of this another time: / But fish not, with this melancholy bait, / For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.

The gudgeon is reputed a fish of excellent taste, and to be very wholesome.

(..) Make fools believe in their foreseeing / Of things before they are in being / To swallow gudgeon ere th' are catch'd; / And count their chickens ere th' are hatch'd (..)

You save your souls here, eating cabbage, and think you are the righteous. You eat a gudgeon a day, and you think you bribe God with gudgeon.

The southern purple-spotted gudgeon can be hard to find. Although colourful, they are thin and only grow up to 12 centimetres.

The doctor now obeys the summons, / Likes both his company and commons; / Displays his talent, sits till ten; Next day invited, comes again; / Soon grows domestic, seldom fails, / Either at morning or at meals; / Came early, and departed late; / In short, the gudgeon took the bait.

(..) as to a wheelbarrow, I fancied I could make all but the wheel; but that I had no notion of; neither did I know how to go about it; besides, I had no possible way to make the iron gudgeons for the spindle or axis of the wheel to run in (..)

This afternoon the gudgeon of the rudder belonging to the large cutter was drawn out and stolen without being perceived by the man that was stationed to take care of her.

"(..) I have seen when you were willing (..) to be treated thus ungratefully—and gudgeoned of the opportunities which had been given you"—